Return of the Submission Incentives
Posted by Lee Torrens
Veer have launched an aggressive campaign to boost their microstock portfolio ahead of a major site redesign. Titled ‘Veer Dash for Cash’, the heavily promoted program pays generous cash bonuses for approved files, ranging from $0.35 to $1.40 per image. The more images you get uploaded and accepted during the promotion, the higher your cash bonus per image. The program started on May 5th and runs until June 30. Details of the program including the requirements and limits are on the Dash for Cash page at Veer.
The offer coincidentally arrives hot on the heels of a similar campaign from new microstock agency, Polylooks, in partnership with Zoonar. Zoonar are paying €0.15 per file. Files are submitted to Zoonar, then through activation of a partnership opt-in they become available for sale on Polylooks too. They need to be accepted on Polylooks to receive the bonus payment at Zoonar.
The Same But Different
Fotolia pioneered the pay-for-accepted-files technique back in 2005. They paid between 20 – 50 cents per accepted photo depending on the total quantity. Comparatively, the Zoonar-Polylooks offer is lower but the Veer offer is significantly more generous.
Dreamstime also pays exclusive contributors 20c per accepted image. This is a permanent incentive and pays retroactively when contributors convert to exclusivity – the only program with these attributes.
Why it’s Needed
The top microstock agencies have a lot of stock and add to it at a rapid rate. Newer agencies who are still building their buyer base don’t have the same selling power to attract contributors and build their portfolio. Most serious microstockers assess each new agency based on expected return on investment, with that investment being the time to upload and submit. Utilities such as iSyndica and the picNiche Toolbars help lower the cost, but for portfolios with a lot of releases to attach it can still be quite high.
Offsetting that cost with a cash bonus is an easy and fast way to overcome contributor resistance. Even for less serious microstockers, simply getting a cash bonus is proving to be a sufficient incentive.
Posted May 27th, 2010 by Lee Torrens
not meaning to nit-pick
, but just to keep our history correct Fotolia was offering up to $0.50 per uploaded file and a minimum of $0.20 on a graduated scale.
0.20 credits for every uploaded approved image over 50
0.35 credits for every uploaded approved image over 100
0.50 credits for every uploaded approved image over 500
http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=323535&page=3
Thanks for the correction, Tyler. I’ve updated the post for accuracy.
I’ll add that the difference between 5 cents and 50 cents is hardly nit-picking. It was a just correction, thankyou.
“Veer have launched an aggressive campaign to boost their microstock portfolio ahead of a major site redesign”
Interesting that you mentioned a redesign. First I’ve heard of it. Is there any more info on that? Launch date?
Ryan B Mention it on MicrostockGroup – probably elsewhere as well.
We’re really happy with the way the Veer Marketplace collection has been growing this past year. Many thanks for your support. In recognition of what you’ve helped us achieve so far, and as a means to help grow our collection even faster ahead of Veer’s big re-launch this summer, we are making a push for more contributors and more content.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/veer-marketplace/wow-great-veer-contributor-initiative-anyone-else-got-the-email/msg144827/#msg144827
Updated the post to include the Dreamstime exclusive submission incentive. Can’t believe I missed that one!
The program definitely got me excited about Veer again. Hopefully, their summer relaunch brings in some customers. It would be nice to see the number of good earning stock sites growing instead of shrinking for a change.
I just signed up for Zoonar and have been busy uploading my portfolio. A few issues:
1. They only accept images over 6 MP. Many of my earlier images were between 4 and 6 MP.
2. They have not approved a single image yet, every single image I have uploaded (more than 600) has been rejected because “It does not meet their quality standards”.
3. At first I could upload 50 images per day, but now that they have rejected all of my images, I can only upload 10 per day.
I still have about 200 some odd images to upload, but I am very doubtful they will approve any of my images. I would steer clear of Zoonar unless I just wanted to waste a bunch of bandwidth and get nothing out of it.